


Unbroken Wings

by JadeNightTheWriter



Series: Wings and Flyte [12]
Category: Septimus Heap - Angie Sage
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot, POV Alternating, Wings AU, but two of them, these are technically drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29042367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeNightTheWriter/pseuds/JadeNightTheWriter
Summary: It’s funny, he thinks, on days when his thoughts are too mixed in memories to be anything more than passing truths. Wings can be damaged by the smallest things, and yet the one thing we can never stop won’t touch them.500 years is a long time. Marcellus and Syrah know that all too well.
Series: Wings and Flyte [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991479
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	Unbroken Wings

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken,,, so many liberties with this fic. Like I just wondered "hmm i need to write angst" and I thought of this :)
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it!

A cemetery stands in a quiet part of the Castle, wrapped in the curve of the Ramblings as the buildings shift to stay away. Beneath the ground lies hundreds of people, makeshift graves to fit the scrambled design of the building itself. 

Marcellus comes here, sometimes, when he needs air on his face and mist in the air to realize that he is, indeed, still alive. 

His wings are the same as ever, bright gold stretching within and flight feathers still shining. He’s sure that if he could dredge up the energy to take flight, they would work just as well as the first day he flew. Instinctive, perfectly smooth, nothing in his flight reflecting him then or now. Too young to understand the horrors of this world, too old to have not contributed his old horrors. 

It is a common practice for families to keep a feather or two to honor deceased members. Marcellus’s sister has many, many feathers that she keeps, locked in a chest where the familiar colors can’t scrape at her heart. The practice, he knows, comes from the belief that your soul lies in your wings, and keeping a feather from the grave will set you free. It’s also said that the soul once in the wings keeps them from every decaying, even long after they have been buried. 

As it turns out, wings never truly do decay, not even after four hundred years of time, wearing away at the unbreaking feathers. 

_It’s funny_ , he thinks, on days when his thoughts are too mixed in memories to be anything more than passing truths. _Wings can be damaged by the smallest things, and yet the one thing we can never stop won’t touch them_.

Marcellus stands up from the stone he was sitting on, gold wings dragging behind him. He no longer tries to keep them properly on his back. Soon, he won’t have the energy to preen his wings, and the feathers will remain whole but his wing will not. He can only hope that another hundred years won’t leave scars, hidden by perfect feathers. 

He has faith in his apprentice, but not much hope for himself. 

After all, they are trying to turn back time, when his wings are right there, taunting him with the promise of death that he can no longer have. There is no turning back now. 

A burst of wind rips through the skeleton trees at the edge of the cemetery. His wings catch it, yanking him roughly. Marcellus lets himself be dragged along. 

A single feather falls onto a grave. Distantly, he knows many more will follow it. 

* * *

Syrah knows, somehow, that something is not quite right. Her clothes are torn and her hair smells like the ocean, and her hands and legs have tiny scratches from brambles and sand and shells. She sees the sun rise every day, watches it set every night, and yet she has no idea how long it has been. 

A few days, possibly, but then why would she be so worn and tired?

A few months, maybe, but then why would she not be tired?

Years, even, but wouldn’t she feel something, anything, the toll of living years on an island?

Syrah doesn’t think about decades and centuries, how much time has passed while she blinked. Her wings are still as beautiful as every, shimmering bright green that only makes her cry as she remembers Julius, who helped her comb them when she didn’t know, who told her they were beautiful and strong, and that she didn’t need to have the wings of a strong bird to have an unbending soul. 

And perhaps he was right, and that is why the feathers are untouched by sea salt and sand.

But perhaps it is simply all the times she’s combed them, and her feathers are broken but she can’t see, just like she can’t see anything beyond the horizon. 

The thought is what circled her head most nights, along with nightmares of a beautiful voice and something like ice in her lungs, tugging her around with a cruel grip.

Some mornings when she remembers, her feathers have frost on the edges. 

_It’s an illusion_ , she prays more than tells herself. _Julius is alright, you’ll see_. 

A boy with a dragon comes to her island, bright blonde hair and brand new robes, purple ribbons wreathing the sleeves, wings lopsided and scarred but still beautiful. There is a girl with him, familiar but not, gold and red wings of a Queen and the face of someone who doesn’t want the fate handed to her. Another boy as well, blue and gold jacket and deep blue wings, reminding her of the deep ocean—why the ocean, she can’t remember, just wings billowing in the deep and falling down down down, hauntingly slow. 

Syrah smiles for them though, because if they know Julius they might tell her, how long it’s truly been. But then the Apprentice tells her, and suddenly she can feel the ground rushing up to her, a painful echo of the memory of first arriving on the island, because now she remembers, she does, and it hurts her like something has been stolen away—her breath or her wings she doesn’t know, and it doesn’t matter because it leaves her crippled anyway. 

She registers being carried onto a ship, blankets tucked around her and hair combed back, sees through a blurry film that the boy sits by her side. But all she can think of is her untouched wings and the time that has passed, like how she blinked once and the world ran by, leaving her behind. 

Syrah is placed in the DisEnchanting Chamber. 

_I’m awake!_ she wants to cry. _Where is Julius’s grave? Bring me there, I need to know, I need to see what happened so I can finally start to forget_.

She does forget, eventually, but every time she sees the boy—what was his name?—it calls up memories of perfect wings and salty air, sand and fires and ice in her lungs. 

Syrah will glance at her wings and wonder if the stories of her past—what Time it was doesn’t matter, she doesn’t think of it—were true. That the wings will never decay from time, never be brushed by the hands that pull the rest of your body away from Living. 

And sometimes, after she wonders that, she’ll look up at the sky and forget, and she’ll wonder why her wings looked broken for a moment, when they are in fact perfectly fine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
